Thursday, June 10, 2010

Last night, I wedged up that huge pile of clay left over from the last clay project--probably 200 pounds worth. I always leave it to the fall, then curse myself for doing that because I get crazy-busy almost immediately. I used the time while wedging to reflect back on the year. One of the coolest websites I found was this past week (see title link), which I used with my third graders to reinforce the concept of "pattern" while they designed their own Grecian urns. They loved it and the interactive timeline works great with the Smartboard. Other surprise successes--the shadow pastels & early in the year, zentangles. As always, students love the cartooning unit (so do I). Big change for next year--a recyclable sculpture project for third grade and more emphasis on story boarding for fifth grade; we will use a sketchbook for that, I think. Another cool end of the year find, a visual bookmarking site, called Symbaloo. I personally still love Delicious, and use Stumble-Upon to find original sites, but students would love the visuals in Symbaloo as they are very "I-Pad-ish" (nice word I just made up). Final thought: Art is at the center of the 21st century, here's the link that discusses that point. That's it for my end of the year reflection, I'll be posting over the summer--have a good one!